Introducing Seymour John

People are our business

We are a specialist recruitment and strategic HR consultancy. We believe that where people flourish, organisations thrive. Whether it is delivering permanent and interim talent solutions or aligned people and change initiatives, ours is a fresh, integrated, holistic approach to ensuring you always have the right people in the right positions at the right time for sustainable organisational success.

We practise what we preach

We are fiercely committed to the people we work with, building long-term relationships based on mutual trust and respect. We apply the same tailored, supportive and flexible approach to our team as we do to the candidates and clients we support. Honest, open, collaborative, we model a more positive, progressive and productive organisational culture. The equation is simple: people who are in the right role and who are engaged, motivated and empowered are more productive, creative and effective.

The inside track to a successful talent strategy

Our people have years of combined experience. Between them, they have built up extensive networks, offering you access to rich and diverse pools of talent. We work with ambitious start-ups and SMEs through to established corporates and public-sector organisations, bringing an objective clarity to the most complex of people-resource challenges. Whether it is the attraction of new talent or the development of your existing people, ours is a human-centric, quality-over-quantity approach that unlocks potential, reduces costs and supports organisational transformation.

Specialist recruitment solutions for the public and not-for-profit sectors

Reduce costs, increase productivity, drive transformation

Talent acquisition in the public and third sectors has a unique set of challenges, not least, attracting and retaining the best talent against stiff competition from the private sector. Seymour John Public Services is a team of specialists dedicated exclusively to meeting them head on. From healthcare and education to local government and not for profits, we help organisations find the right solutions to their permanent interim and temporary people-resource challenges.

This has always been a demanding sector. Even though funding is being squeezed, the demands and expectations of service users and regulatory bodies are higher than ever. The drive towards greater efficiency is relentless. In such uncertain times, the need for strategic, tenacious and adaptable leaders, with the capacity to deal with the pressure and scale of current and future challenges, is pressing.

The best fit is always made to measure

We design and deliver precise yet flexible workforce solutions. Whether through a detailed service specification, focused search and selection campaign or project consultancy model, ours is a dedicated, pin-point service that is tailored to both yours and our candidates’ unique requirements. It is why we have become the go-to specialist for finding suitably qualified individuals, especially for hard-to-fill positions, in the sector.

Our specialist public-sector services, include:

Search & Selection

Interim & Temporary

Project Consultancy

Assessment & Profiling

HR Strategy & Consulting

From talent attraction, retention and development to change and transformation initiatives, we take an integrated approach to people and performance, helping you do more with less.

Developing talent from within: An integrated approach to people-resourcing

In competitive sectors where sourcing new talent can be challenging, the best option, sometimes, is to develop the talent you already have. Our People & Change strategic HR consultancy help you implement people initiatives that drive change and transformation, improving performance through learning and development and employee engagement. They will help you not only respond effectively to imposed operational and ER requirements, but also to develop proactive people strategies that take the initiative in meeting organisational objectives, mitigating risk, reducing costs, improving performance and driving sustainable growth.

Nimble and flexible, our expert consultants adapt seamlessly to offer the level of support you need, depending on the complexity of the issue and your internal capability, promoting transparency at every stage and always working towards clearly defined business outcomes.

Expertise, value for money and quality of service should be a given, whatever the sector. However, when public money is being spent, it is imperative that there is compliance with relevant regulation and a transparency of process. As you know, procurement can take time, both for you and the companies tendering. Frameworks offer you a faster, more efficient way of commissioning services, whilst still ensuring your organisation remains compliant. Working to pre-agreed parameters, they also ensure value, as well as creating an open, level playing field for those tendering.

A flexible approach to procurement

That said, public-sector organisations can struggle to secure the calibre of talent they need because of ill-fitting or constraining approaches to consultancy procurement. Organisations need to be flexible and agile. For many, a tender is not always the best option; sometimes, you need to be able to award a contract directly, particularly when you need a functional or sector expert to headhunt for a specialist or critical leadership role.

The RM6002 Permanent Recruitment Framework offers a more flexible approach to procuring talent solutions that are tailored to your specific requirements.

Commission with confidence

As established experts in healthcare, education, local government, central government, housing and not for profit, our specialist public-sector team help organisations across the UK find solutions to permanent, interim and project consultancy resource challenges.

This framework offers a great deal of flexibility. Open to all public-sector bodies, it is primarily designed to help you secure high-quality talent for permanent and difficult-to-fill roles. You can award directly or through a mini competition. Pricing is pre-agreed and covers most roles (although not clinical or teaching roles). It ensures a comprehensive choice of suppliers to provide recruitment services under the following models:

Contingency recruitment (general recruitment) – a non-exclusive recruitment service with payment on fulfilment

Retained search (executive search) – a recruitment service involving closer engagement with customers and higher service levels. This service is expected to be used for senior, executive and/or niche and specialist roles